Buggy day for young Gaines Elementary gardeners

Things got a little buggy at Gaines Elementary School Tuesday after school. Really buggy, actually, for members of the Gaines Elementary Gardening Club.

Their after-school program was supposed to be about butterflies - they're putting out plants on the school grounds that will attract butterflies to their gardens of radishes, tomatoes, carrots, blueberries and lettuce.

But Cecil Smith, a retired curator at the Georgia Museum of Natural History had more in store than just pretty butterflies, though there were plenty of those.

What got the young gardeners bug-eyed were specimens such as the giant atlas beetle, a giant grub and the world' largest tick - found right here in Georgia, Smith told them as they passed around a specimen of the huge tick.

Not to worry, though, Smith told them. The tick attaches only to gopher tortoises in south Georgia, not to people.

"That's an elephant dung beetle," Smith said as he showed another of the glass-topped boxes he'd brought with him from the natural history museum on the UGA campus - a small part of the museum's collection of about 2 million insect specimens. There were only 300,000 specimens at the museum when Smith came to UGA and the museum 40 years ago, he said. Smith himself collected quite a few of those additional specimens in trips to South America and other places around the world.

"I know why they call them grubs," volunteered one fourth-grade club member, after hearing that grubs are actually food for some people. "Because you eat them for grub!"

Most club members, especially fourth-grader Brisa Suarez, had no trouble when Smith asked them how to tell an insect from an arthropod. Arachnids like spiders have eight legs, insects six, they knew.

Suarez had studied on her own about insects; she was just interested in them, she said.

Smith held up a box full of tarantulas, one of them the largest spider species in the world. Teacher Valerie Oxford shuddered, but not the students, who peered in for a better look. It was easier since all the bugs and butterflies Smith brought were dead, pinned specimens mounted in display boxes.

"How did you catch the tarantula?" inquired club member Currian Boyce. A big tarantula once plopped down on Smith's face, but it didn't hurt, Smith told them.

Later, the young gardeners got down to business with master gardeners and club sponsors Brenda Beckham and Heather Gray. Along with Oxford and teachers Kell Pihera and Philip Smith, they went outside to check on their just-beginning spring garden. They also planted Joe Pye weed in hopes it would attract butterflies to help pollinate their vegetables and flowers.

It was a good end to the school day for Tamara Greene, fourth grade, KaShonda Brown, fourth grade and Aaliyah Deadwyler, fifth grade.

"I always wanted to be a gardener because I watched so many gardening shows on TV," explained Tamara, who's been participating in the after-school gardening club her entire school career. "And I like to draw flowers."

In cut-off plastic barrels outside one school entrance, they've planted carrots, radishes and other vegetables, said club member Iza Brown, who is going to be a pediatrician when she grows up.

She peered over to examine the tiny shoots already coming up, then showed visitors other things they've planted, such as basil, thyme, rosemary and mint in an herb garden near their apple tree. They're also growing blueberries in a nearby garden area, she said.

LilyGrace Jordan found a worm, pulled it up and showed it around. A couple of garden club members recoiled from the wiggling creature she held in her palm.

Not Iza, though. She scoffed as she saw her classmates step back from the worm.

"I love worms," she declared. "If you went fishing it would change your whole perspective on worms."

LilyGrace agreed.

"I like worms," she said. She also likes the garden club.

"We learn about plants, like the different types and what to do. You learn about a lot of stuff like all the plants of the world and how they're good for the environment," LilyGrace said.